Wayne Thiebaud Cakes with oil pastel - grade six

Wayne Thiebaud cake lesson plans are such a good bang for your buck. Have you seen his amazing cake paintings?

They translate so well to oil pastel lessons for junior level grades. You get some fundamental drawing skills, shading, blending, and a finished product that looks kinda 3D, and the entire thing can be accomplished in under one and a half hours! Since I am still on mat leave (only for another week!! Ugh) I've been getting my fill of art by volunteering with my friend's class, so I really need lessons that can be done in one shot, rather quickly but with a great payoff. 

I always begin projects like this with a group draw (think - paint night style.) I drew each step on the board, stopping to make sure that everyone was following along and making sure the lines were parallel. I can't stress how important this is! If they aren't parellel lines, the cake will look... not like a cake. Which just isn't fun when you're doing a cake project.

Next, students need to begin coloring and shading using oil pastel. I told them they could go crazy with as many layers as they wanted, but to remember that every layer needed to be colored in, so if they were super thin, they would have trouble keeping the lines clean.

Have them start by (1) coloring in each layer with a base color. Next, they will (2) blend using white oil pastel, going toward the center. Finally, they will (3) blend using black oil paste, going toward the center. I tell my students that they don't need to use fingers or kleenex to blend oil pastel, that just coloring on top of the color with the shade will blend it quite nicely. 

Once the layers are done, they can color the exterior of the cake. Using the same technique of coloring with the base layer first, students can blend the black and white oil pastels coming from the edges and going in toward the center of the cake. 

The top can be colored with an all over color, and students can decorate it using candles, candies, and anything else they can dream up!

The final step is the add-ons - a plate, a table, some cake shadowing. 

Some kids went ahead and did wallpaper designs, which just took the project up a notch. Depending on how much time you have, there can be a lot of creativity here!

I love this lesson. It would be great  to leave with a substitute. You could even link them to this page and just have them follow the steps. Easy peasy!

Have you tried this activity? If so, please link me in the comments!

Trees for Earth Day

This is so late, but I have some more projects to share that are even later!

For Earth Day, my first graders did trees on blooming trees. They used marker to draw the tree, then scraps of old tissue paper and manuals that were going to be recycled to make the leaves. When they were finished, they added in flowers and other details. Very simple to do, and so cute!

Birdhouses - grade 2

This is a one day project that I did with my 2nd graders. The weather was beautiful, and I felt inspired by the birds outside. Working off a lesson I found at Deep Space Sparkle, I guided the students through a drawing lesson and showed them how to paint their birdhouse sticks so that they would appear "3-D".

Students started by drawing the birdhouses on large construction paper, using pencil. They worked hard on certain details, like the little perch for the bird, to make it look 3-D.

When they were done drawing, they painted in the stick, mixing brown with white and black to give a gradient effect.

After, they painted the birdhouse however they wanted! Some took the time to add in clouds and grass, and one student even colored the sky in the background!

When they were finished with that, they used scraps of paper, from a grade 2/3 classes non-objective art projects back in November, to trace cute little birds which they glued onto their artwork.

Legoman contour shading - grade 4/5

I am so happy with this lesson! This is one I came up with myself (FINALLY!) and I had a great time with it. If your school is anything like mine, then Legoman is a very popular character amongst the kids. I even made my own Lego man costume for Halloween last year. So I decided, what better way to study contour shading then to draw your own Legoman head!?

Students studied the shape of Legoman's head, and drew the basic shape. Then using chalk pastels, they shaded in the head, concentrating darkness on the sides, and getting lighter as they worked into the center. They used white pastels to highlight, in order to make the head really appear cylindrical. When the shading was finished, they added the little Legoman face. I must say, the results were adorable!

Blazing Banyan Tree - Step by step

 I had a few requests to post some step by step instructions for the blazing banyan tree, so here they are! I'll post the pictures, then below I'll post a few notes and tips. Please let me know if you try it and have success!

Step 1: Using a pencil on black paper, draw the tree trunk (make sure it isn't touching the bottom of the paper.)
Step 2: Extend the trunk lines to each side of the paper, to begin making your branches.
Step 3: Close up the lines to finish your first two branches
Step 4: Continue adding branches - 2 extending towards the sides of your page, and three extending up to the top of your page.
Step 5:  Begin drawing bridges between your branches. Between every set of two branches, there should be two "bridges" coming out of them.
Step 6: Continue drawing the bridges between the branches. These are breaking your background into sections, which will help while you are coloring in.
Step 7: Add 2 branches extending from your side branches, towards the ground. Break these branches into 2 at the ends.
Step 8: Erase any lines that connect one branch to another. This will make your tree one fluid shape. Add a horizontal line to break up the background and the lake that the tree is coming out of. Finish off the bottom of your trunk with a slight curve.

Now, it's time to color! For each section you have created, you will use TWO colors of oil pastel to color in. You can assign rules for how to select color (cool colors only, one warm + one cool per section, analogous colors, etc.) I didn't put any limitations on it, as the focus of the lesson was on creating an object using negative space.

In the bottom portion, underneath the branches but before the lake, I let students color a gradient of colors, to create a sort of unnatural looking sunset.

Within an hour, you should have a great finished product!

Good luck!!

Bunny buddies - Pre-Kindergarten (JK)

Here's a cute little lesson I just did with my pre-kindergarten kids. They weren't too complicated, but the students did benefit from repeated reminders of the instructions. They had to draw the bunny head on a piece of folded 8.5 x 11. To draw the head, they just drew a "rainbow" shape, then drew two ears coming out of it. It didn't matter that there were pencil lines all over, because they just glued the bad side down afterward. They glued on pre-cut teeth, and used Sharpie and pink marker to color in the details. Pretty cute!

Blazing banyan tree - grade 4/5

This is a great lesson from the book Dynamic Art Projects for Children. When I googled it, I found quite a few teachers that had done it with their class. However, I kept seeing the same comment in the blogs and comments: this project took too long to complete and the kids lost interest, mainly because the tree was done with paints and had to dry. 

What is the solution to this? Draw your tree on black paper! When the tree is drawn lightly on black paper, it not only eliminates the step of painting, but it also puts more emphasis on creating something by focusing only on the negative space behind the trees. I had several students finish within the hour (and they were working on HUGE pieces of cardstock the size of their desk!) If you want to have most to all students finish within the hour, I would suggest cutting a piece of poster board into 4 pieces, and that should be the right size to get it done, while still being big enough to pack a punch.

I can post step by step instructions here if anyone is interested - it's just a bit of work to do if people don't need them! If you would like step by steps, please comment and let me know, and I'll make some up and post them asap!

Name art - grade 4/5

I am getting rid of my old iPhone so I was emptying out the pictures, and found a couple of projects that I never posted. This is a lesson that I actually did the first week of school. It was great since I didn’t really know the kids all that well. It would be PERFECT for supply teachers.

Instructions:

1)      Using sharpie, write your name in cursive about 10 times on a piece of white paper. Make sure that you are writing in all different directions, and that your name intersects with itself (no floating names!) Names should be in all different sizes

2)      When you are happy with how it looks, select 3 or 4 markers, and begin filling in the sections that you have made. Work all over the page, so that when the work period is up, all work will appear “finished”, even if all sections have not been completed.

That’s really it! Definitely good for a 40min-1 hour block. I did this with grade 4/5, but I think anyone from grade 3-6 would do well.